This is the kind of night it has been: I spent about three-fourths of my shift reading landscape tables, most of which were 15 columns of numbers set in six-point type. At the end of the night, I staggered down the ten flights of stairs to the lobby and rummaged in my purse for my security pass so I could pass through the turnstiles and fleeeeeeeee.

It wasn't in there.

I swore, about-faced, punched the button to summon the one working elevator, rode it up to eleven, and knocked on the door, hoping that since all the lights were still on, SK (who had been working at the front desk) was still there.

She was not. (Or at least, she wasn't answering the door. Who knows?)

Fuming, I took the elevator (because damned if I was going to walk down all those stairs again) back to the lobby and figured out that I could sidle past the turnstiles and reach the security guard's window.

"Excuse me, hi. I forgot my ID in my office, which I am now, of course, locked out of. Is there any way I can get in, or will it sit there 'til Monday?"

"Your ID?"

"My security pass."

"What about..." He gestured toward my torso, so I looked down...at my pass, which was hanging around my neck, as it had been since the start of my shift.

I literally facepalmed.

"It's Friday," he said, sympathetically.

(On my way out I briefly considered doing the environmentally friendly thing and going back up to eleven to turn off the lights, but oh fuck it.)

So then, of course, of course, my taxi had to take a winding detour through the wilds of Queens because my usual exit from the L.I.E. was closed for road work. I arrived home in a distinctly unsalubrious frame of mind, logged on to LiveJournal so that I could vent, and LO!

I found this extract from the ruling of one Barbara B. Crabb, a judge of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, on whether or not Todd McFarlane was trying to pass off a thinly disguised Gaiman character (specifically, medieval knight Hellspawn) as an original creation:

If defendant really wanted to differentiate the new Hellspawn, why not make him aPortuguese explorer in the 16th century; an officer of the Royal Navy in the 18th century, anidealistic recruit of Simon Bolivar in the 19th century, a companion of Odysseus on hisvoyages, a Roman gladiator, a younger brother of Emperor Nakamikado in the early 18thcentury, a Spanish conquistador, an aristocrat in the Qing dynasty, an American Indianwarrior or a member of the court of Queen Elizabeth I? It seems far more than coincidencethat Dark Ages (McFarlane) Spawn is a knight from the same century as Medieval (Gaiman)Spawn.